Mr & Mrs Smith

Rosas & Xocolate

Yucatán, Mexico

Had Willy Wonka ever set up a hotel in Yucatán, and developed side interests in perfume and tequila, the result might have looked a little like Rosas & Xocolate: a Mayan-inspired mansion with a chocolate shop, mini perfumery and tequila bar.

Need to know

• Rooms 17, including three suites.
• Rates Double rooms from AU$241.29 ($235), excluding tax at 19 per cent.
  The price shown represents the lowest nightly rate for a double room available at this hotel over the next 21 days. Any price conversions from the hotel's local currency ($235) have been conducted using today's exchange rates from xe.com.
• More details Rates usually include an American breakfast.
• Facilities Chocolate shop, gym, library and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: air-conditioning, a hammock, flatscreen TV, Bose sound system with CD and DVD player, iPod dock, minibar with espresso machine, L’Occitane bath products and locally made rose-and-chocolate soap.
• Poolside Edged by palm trees and set in the interior courtyard, the pool is designed with cooling dips in mind, rather than sporty laps.
• Check-out 2pm, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, noon.
• Children Although the hotel is more geared towards adults, babysitting can be arranged for US$10 an hour (give 24 hours’ notice), and little ones are allowed in the restaurant.
• Also Smokers can light up in the restaurant, bar and on the suites’ terraces. Try one of the hotel’s xocolatherapy treatments, which feature locally produced pure cocoa paste in facials and massages.

Food and drink at Rosas & Xocolate

• Hotel restaurant

  Chef David Segovia, fresh from Mexico City, riffs on traditional Yucatecan classics, incorporating locally sourced ingredients in each dish at Rosas & Xocolate restaurant. Start the day with huevos motuleños: fried tortilla topped with eggs, beans, lashings of tasty tomato sauce and sprinklings of cheese. At dinner, order the moreish chicharron de pulpo (fried octopus bites). Be sure to order from the 'signature dish' menu, too.

• Dress code For Mrs Smith: a vibrant Erdem dress to stand-out against the pink; Mr Smith will be dapper in a white linen suit.
• Top table Grab a seat at a table facing the creeping-ivy-covered walls of the interior courtyard. For a private dinner à deux outside, go for a table tucked behind the spiral staircase that leads to the Moon Lounge.
• Last orders Breakfast is from 7.30am, lunch is available from noon to 8pm and dinner is served from 8pm to midnight. Cocktails are shaken until 2am in the Moon Lounge and the tequila bar.
• Room service Order from the restaurant's menu from 7.30am until midnight.
• Hotel bar

  Flanked by antique columns preserved from the original construction, the tequila bar, adjacent to the lobby, serves more than 250 different variations of the potent spirit, plus equally brain-numbing mescal. Sip your chosen poison in one of the squashy leather lounge chairs – after a tequila or two, getting up will be difficult. Thick braids of henequen, fibers from the agave plant, are suspended in the lobby above the bar. Upstairs, the rooftop Moon Lounge has beautiful mosaic tables, hot-pink chairs, jazzy lounge music and a relaxed atmosphere. On Fridays, the busiest night, catch the live jazz band.

Rosas & Xocolate Paseo Montejo 480x41 Col Centro, Yucatan, Merida, 97000